Shina language

Shina ( Template:Transliteration, ) is a Dardic language of Indo-Aryan language family spoken by the Shina people. In Pakistan, Shina is the major language in Gilgit-Baltistan spoken by an estimated 1,146,000 people living mainly in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan. A small community of Shina speakers is also found in India, in the Gurez valley of Jammu and Kashmir and in Dras valley of Ladakh. Outliers of Shina language such as Brokskat are found in Ladakh, Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir, Palula and Sawi in Chitral, Ushojo in the Swat Valley and Kalkoti in Dir.

Until recently, there was no writing system for the language. A number of schemes have been proposed, but presently, there is no single writing system used by speakers of Shina. Shina is mostly a spoken language and not a written language.

Due to the effects of dominant languages in Pakistani media like Urdu, Standard Punjabi, and English, in addition to the religious significance of Arabic and Persian, Shina is continuously expanding its vocabulary base with loan words. This process is also ongoing with that of many other languages in Pakistan. It has close relationships with other Indo-Aryan languages, especially Standard Punjabi, Western Punjabi, Sindhi, and the dialects of Western Pahari.

Distribution

In Pakistan

There are an estimated 1,146,000 speakers of both Shina and Kohistani Shina in Pakistan according to Ethnologue (2018), a majority of whom reside in the provinces of Khyber-Pakhtunkwa and Gilgit-Baltistan. A small community of Shina speakers is also settled in the Neelam valley of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

In India

A small community of Shina speakers is also settled in India in the far north of the Kargil district bordering Gilgit-Baltistan. Their population is estimated to be around 32,200 according to the 2011 census.

Phonology

The following is a description of the phonology of the Drasi, Shina variety spoken in India and the Kohistani variety in Pakistan.

Vowels

The Shina principal vowel sounds:Template:Sfn

	Front	Mid	Back
			unrd.	rnd.
High	i			u
High-mid	e			o
Low-mid	ɛ	ə	ʌ	ɔ
Low	(æ)	a

All vowels except /ɔ/ can be either long or nasalized, though no minimal pairs with the contrast are found.Template:Sfn /æ/ is heard from loanwords.Template:Sfn

Diphthongs

In Shina there are the following diphthongs:Template:Sfn

• falling: ae̯, ao̯, eə̯, ɛi̯, ɛːi̯, ue̯, ui̯, oi̯, oə̯;
• falling nasalized: ãi̯, ẽi̯, ũi̯, ĩũ̯, ʌĩ̯;
• raising: u̯i, u̯e, a̯a, u̯u.

Consonants

In India, the dialects of the Shina language have preserved both initial and final OIA consonant clusters, while the Shina dialects spoken in Pakistan have not.

		Labial	Coronal	Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stop	Voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
	Aspirated	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	Voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	BreathyTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Affricate	Voiceless		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	Aspirated		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	Voiced		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
	Breathy				Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Fricative	Voiceless	(Template:IPA link)	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn		Template:IPA link
	Voiced		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn		Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Nasal		Template:IPA link (Template:IPA link)Template:Efn	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Lateral			Template:IPA link (Template:IPA link)Template:Efn
Rhotic			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA linkTemplate:Efn
Semivowel		Template:IPA link~Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link

Tone

Shina words are often distinguished by three contrasting tones: level, rising, and falling tones. Here is an example that shows the three tones:

"The" () has a level tone and means the imperative "Do!"

When the stress falls on the first mora of a long vowel, the tone is falling. Thée () means "Will you do?"

When the stress falls on the second mora of a long vowel, the tone is rising. Theé () means "after having done".

Orthography

Shina is one of the few Dardic languages with a written tradition.Template:Sfn However, it was an unwritten language until a few decades ago.Template:Sfn Only in the late 2010s has Shina orthography been standardized and primers as well as dictionaries endorsed by the territorial government of Gilgit-Baltistan have been published.

Since the first attempts at accurately representing Shina's phonology in the 1960s, there have been several proposed orthographies for the different varieties of the language. Debates have centered on how to write several retroflex sounds not present in Urdu, and whether vowel length and tone should be represented.Template:Sfn

There are two main orthographic conventions now, one in Pakistani-controlled areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and in Kohistan, and the other in Indian-controlled area of Dras, Ladakh.

Below, the alphabet has been standardized, documented, and popularized thanks to the efforts of literaturists such as Professor Muhammad Amin Ziya, Shakeel Ahmad Shakeel, and Razwal Kohistani. The alphabet established by these individuals has been developed for all Shina language dialects, including the Gilgit dialect and the Kohistani dialect. There are minor differences, such as the existence of the letter in Kohistani dialect of Shina. Furthermore, variations and personal preferences can be observed across Shina documents. For example, it is common to see someone use instead of for Template:IPAblink, or use sukun (U+0652) instead of small sideway noon (U+08FF) to indicate short vowels. However, these variations are no longer an issue. Another issue is that of how to write loanwords that use letters not found in Shina language, for example letters "", which all sound like [s] in Shina. Some documents preserve the original spelling, despite the letters being homophones and not having any independent sound of their own, similar to orthographic conventions of Persian and Urdu. Whereas other documents prefer to rewrite all loanwords in a single Shina letter, and thus simplify the writing, similar to orthographic conventions of Kurdish and Uyghur.

Shina vowels are distinguished by length, by whether or not they're nasalized, and by tone. Nasalization is represented like other Perso-Arabic alphabets in Pakistan, with Nun Ghunna (). In Shina, tone variation only occur when there is a long vowel. There are conventions unique to Shina to show the three tones. In Shina conventions, specific diacritics are shown in conjunction with the letters alif, waw, buṛi ye, and ye (), as these letters are written down to represent long vowels. The diacritics inverted damma (U+0657) and superscript alef (U+0670) represent a rising tone and a falling tone respectively. Another diacritic, a small sideway noon (U+08FF) is used to represent short vowels when need be.

Consonants

Below table shows Shina consonants.

Name	Forms				IPA	Transliteration	Unicode	Notes
Shina	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
alif					Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink, silent	– / aa	U+0622 U+0627	At the beginning of a word it can either come with diacritic, or it can come in form of alif-madda (), or it can be stand-alone and silent, succeeded by a vowel letter. Diacritics can be omitted in writing.
be					Template:IPAblink	b	U+0628
pe					Template:IPAblink	p	U+067E
te					Template:IPAblink	t	U+062A
te					Template:IPAblink	ṭ	U+0679
se					Template:IPAblink	s	U+062B	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter siin .
ǰom					Template:IPAblink	ǰ	U+062C
če					Template:IPAblink	č	U+0686
tse					Template:IPAblink	ts	U+0685	Letter borrowed from Pashto alphabet. In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
c̣e					Template:IPAblink	c̣	U+0687	Unique letter for Shina language. Some Shina literatures and documents use two horizontal lines instead of four dots, use instead of . In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
he					Template:IPAblink	h	U+062D	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter hay .
khe					Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink	kh	U+062D	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with digraph letter khe .
daal			-	-	Template:IPAblink	d	U+062F
ḍaal			-	-	Template:IPAblink	ḍ	U+0688
zaal			-	-	Template:IPAblink	z	U+0688	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter ze .
re			-	-	Template:IPAblink	r	U+0631
ṛe			-	-	Template:IPAblink	ṛ	U+0691
ze			-	-	Template:IPAblink	z	U+0632
že / ǰe			-	-	Template:IPAblink‍~Template:IPAblink‍	ž / ǰ	U+0632	Only used in loanwords of Persian and European origin. Can be replaced with letter jom .
ẓe			-	-	Template:IPAblink	ẓ	U+0699	Unique letter for Shina language. Some Shina literatures and documents use two horizontal lines instead of four dots, use instead of . In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
siin					Template:IPAblink	s	U+0633
šiin					Template:IPAblink	š	U+0634
ṣiin					Template:IPAblink	ṣ	U+0687	Unique letter for Shina language. Some Shina literatures and documents use two horizontal lines instead of four dots, use instead of . In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
swaad					Template:IPAblink	s	U+0635	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter siin .
zwaad					Template:IPAblink	z	U+0636	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter ze .
tooy					Template:IPAblink	t	U+0637	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter te .
zooy					Template:IPAblink	z	U+0638	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter ze .
ayn					Template:IPAblink, silent	-	U+0639	Only used in loanwords of Arabic origin. Can be replaced with letter alif .
gayn					Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink	g	U+0639	Only used in loanwords of Arabic and Turkic origin. Can be replaced with letter gaaf .
fe / phe					Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink	f / ph	U+0641	Only used in loanwords. Can be replaced with digraph letter phe .
qaaf / kaaf					Template:IPAblink~Template:IPAblink	q / k	U+0642	Only used in loanwords of Arabic and Turkic origin. Can be replaced with letter kaaf .
kaaf					Template:IPAblink	k	U+0643
gaaf					Template:IPAblink	g	U+06AF
laam					Template:IPAblink	l	U+0644
miim					Template:IPAblink	m	U+0645
nuun					Template:IPAblink	n	U+0646
nuuṇ					Template:IPAblink	ṇ	U+0768	In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
nū̃ / nūn gunna					Template:IPAslink	◌̃	For middle of word: U+0646 plus U+0658 For end of word: U+06BA
nuung					Template:IPAslink	ng	U+0646 plus U+0658 and U+06AF	A digraph, counted as a letter.
waaw			-	-	Template:IPAblink / Template:IPAblink	w / ō	U+0648	The letter waaw can either represent consonant ([w/v]) or vowel ([oo]). It can also act as a carrier of vowel diacritics, representing several other vowels. At the beginning of a word, when representing a consonant, the letter waaw will appear as a standalone character, followed by the appropriate vowel. If representing a vowel at the beginning of a word, the letter waaw needs to be preceded by an alif . When the letter waaw comes at the end of the word representing a consonant sound [w], a hamza is used to label it as such and avoid mispronunciation as a vowel.
hai					Template:IPAblink	h	U+0646	This letter differs from do-ac̣hi'ii hay (ھ) and they are not interchangeable. Similar to Urdu,do-chashmi hē (ھ) is exclusively used as a second part of digraphs for representing aspirated consonants. In initial and medial position, the letter hē always represents the consonant [h]. In final position, The letter hē can either represent consonant ([h]) or it can demonstrate that the word ends with short vowels a , i , u .
hamza		-	-	-	Template:IPAblink, silent	’	U+0621	Used mid-word to indicate separation between a syllable and another that starts with a vowel. hamza on top of letters waaw and ye at end of a word serves a function too. When the letter waaw or ye come at the end of the word representing a consonant sound [w] or [y], a hamza is used to label it as such and avoid mispronunciation as a vowel.
ye / leekhii ye					Template:IPAblink / Template:IPAblink / Template:IPAblink	y / e / i	U+06CC	The letter ye can either represent consonant ([j]) or vowels ([e]/[i]). It can also act as a carrier of vowel diacritics, representing several other vowels. At the beginning of a word, when representing a consonant, the letter ye will appear as a standalone character, followed by the appropriate vowel. If representing a vowel at the beginning of a word, the letter ye needs to be preceded by an alif . When the letter ye comes at the end of the word representing a consonant sound [j], a hamza is used to label it as such and avoid mispronunciation as a vowel. When representing a vowel at the end of a word, it can only be [i]. For vowel [e], the letter buṛi ye is used.
buṛi ye			-	-	Template:IPAblink / Template:IPAblink	e / y	U+06D2	The letter buṛi ye only occurs in final position. The letter buṛi ye represents the vowel "ē" [eː] or the consonant "y" [j].
bhe					Template:IPAblink	bh	U+0628 and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
phe					Template:IPAblink	ph	U+067E and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
the					Template:IPAblink	th	U+062A and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
ṭhe					Template:IPAblink	ṭh	U+0679 and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
ǰhom					Template:IPAblink	ǰh	U+062C and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
čhe					Template:IPAblink	čh	U+0686 and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
tshe					Template:IPAblink	tsh	U+0685 and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter. In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
c̣he					Template:IPAblink	c̣h	U+0687 and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter. In the official Shina orthography in Indian-Controlled Kashmir, the letter is used.
khe					Template:IPAblink	kh	U+0643 and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.
ghe					Template:IPAblink	gh	U+06AF and U+06BE	A digraph, counted as a letter.

Vowels

There are five vowels in Shina language. Each of the five vowels in Shina have a short version and a long version. Shina is also a tonal language. Short vowels in Shina have a short high level tone . Long vowels can either have "no tone", i.e. a long flat tone , a long rising tone Template:IPAblink, or a long falling tone (.

All five vowels have a defined way of presentation in Shina orthographic conventions, including letters and diacritics. Although diacritics can and are occasionally dropped in writing. Short vowels [a], [i], and [u] are solely written with diacritics. Short vowels [e] and [o] are written with letters waw and buṛi ye. A unique diacritic, a small sideway noon (U+08FF) is used on top of these letters to indicate a short vowel. Long vowels are written with a combination of diacritics and letters alif, waaw or ye.

Below table shows short vowels at the beginning, middle, and end of a word.

Vowel at the beginning of the word
a	e	i	o	u
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the middle of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the end of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic

Below table shows long vowels at the beginning, middle, and end of a word, with "no tone", i.e. a long flat tone .

Vowel at the beginning of the word
aa	ee	ii	oo	uu
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the middle of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the end of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic

Below table shows long vowels at the beginning, middle, and end of a word, with a long rising tone Template:IPAblink.

Vowel at the beginning of the word
aá	eé	ií	oó	uú
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the middle of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the end of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic

Below table shows long vowels at the beginning, middle, and end of a word, with a long falling tone (.

Vowel at the beginning of the word
áa	ée	íi	óo	úu
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the middle of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic
Vowel at the end of the word
Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic	Template:Script/Arabic

Text sample

Below is a short passage of sample phrases.

Shina Arabic alphabet (orthography of Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan)	Template:Script/Arabic
Latin Transliteration	Asáa ek saníilo góoṣ pašées. Asáa dahíilo góoṣ pašées. Góoṣ jéeji dahíilo léel bíino. Góoṣ wazií na ditobáalo.
Translation	We saw a completely constructed house. We saw the house burnt down. The house appears burnt by someone. The house could not collapse completely.

See also

• Brokskat language
• Kundal Shahi language
• Ushoji language
• Kalkoti language
• Palula language
• Savi language

Further reading

• A history of the development of writing in Shina
• Contains a Shina grammar, German-Shina and Shina-German dictionaries, and over 700 Shina proverbs and short texts.
• Contains 15000 words plus material on the phonetics of Shina.

External links

• Sasken Shina, contains materials in and about the language
• 1992 Sociolinguistic Survey of Shina
• Shina Language Textbook for Class5
• Shina Language Textbook for Class6